AN OLD FRONTIERSMAN TELLS HIS EXPERIENCE, Page #0417

the
cook. Jim and Dock Watts, who lived at the Man Crossing on the Medina, came to
us further up the trail. Woofter went with us, but did not come back. Jim Speed
was killed in Moore several years ago ; Tom McDaniel died in 1887; Uncle Ben
Duncan died in 1919, and the old cook also went the way we must all go sooner or
later. Gus Black of Eagle Pass is the only one of my old comrades on this drive
who is still living.

In 1874 I made a trip up the old Chisholm trail with 1,000 beeves which had been
selected and put in the Shiner pasture below Pearsall. We went to work gathering
them about the 20th of February and it took us until the 5th of March to get
them out of the thickets, inspected and road-branded. These cattle were in good
shape and as fine beeves as you ever saw, no she stuff, and mostly threes and
up. There were a few twos, but they were all fours when we got through and ready
for the market. On the morning of March 5th we pointed those old moss-headed
beeves up the trail and made it to the Davis ranch that night. Uncle Bob said we
could pen them there and perhaps get a little sleep, but a norther and a dry
thunderstorm blew up and everybody had to get around that old pen and sing to
them while they were milling around like a grindstone. We pulled out from there
at sunrise the next morning and drove to the old John Adams ranch on the
Castroville road, where we penned the beeves again and had another bad night.
Nobody got any sleep, but we kept them in the pen. When the herd reached New
Braunfels Uncle Bob, who was acting boss, turned the herd over to Bill Perryman
and turned back. Our regular boss was V. A. Johnson, who had been detained in
San Antonio on account of sickness in his family.

We crossed the Guadalupe River in a rain, and just after nightfall we had a
severe storm with lots of thunder, lightning and cold. It was so dark most of
the hands left us and went to the chuck wagon except W. T. Henson, myself and
old Chief, a negro. We had to let them drift, and it took us two or three days
to get them back together. We were about thirty head short when we counted and
pulled out from there. When we reached the vicinity where Kyle is now located we
had another big storm and a general mixup with some ,other herds that were near
us. We had quite a time cutting our cattle out and getting them all back,
especially some strays that were in the herd.

We had storms and stampedes all the way up to Red River, which we reached about
the 16th of April. We never did succeed in holding all of them at any time. We
had a few old trouble-makers in the herd, which, if they had been shot when we
first started, would have saved t s a lot of worry. They ran so much they became
regular old scalawags. But, strange to say, we never had a single stampede while
passing through the Indian Territory. The Indians did not give us as much
trouble on this trip as they did in 1872.

Ed Chambers was killed at Pond Creek, while in charge of a herd for Tucker
& Duncan. We had some exciting times getting our herd across Red
River, which was on a big rise, and nearly a mile wide, with all kinds of large
trees floating down on big foam-capped waves that looked larger than a wagon
sheet, but we had to put our herd over to the other side. Henson and I were
selected to go across and hold the cattle when they reached the opposite side.
We were mounted on small paint ponies, and the one I was riding got into some
quicksand just under the water and stuck there. I dismounted in water about knee
deep, rolled him over and took off my saddle, bridle and leggins, then undressed
myself and called some of the boys to come in and get my things, while I headed
my horse for the north bank with just a rope around his neck. I figured that if
my little pony could not make it across I would use one of those moss-headed
steers for a ferry boat, but the little